Will you take the 40 bags in 40 days challenge with me?

As my Itty Bitty (age 3) is sitting here on my bed telling me, right this very moment,  I'm a mess!  I love to de-clutter, organize, and label things.  I'm pretty intentional about not buying a bunch of junk.  I try to be frugal.  Nevertheless, somehow, mysteriously I'm still losing the war against stuff.  My Itty Bitty is pretending to "organize" all the loose papers and index cards in my Bible.  She has pulled out every one of them, and in her grown-up, serious voice she's saying things like, "Mama, this is unacceptable.  This is too much mess!  I'm going to organize these papers for you, and we've got to get rid of this junk!"  (Where does she learn these exaggerated statements?!)  So...during Lent this year, I'm de-junking (yet again), but this time it's more fun because I'm doing it with my friend Macki (who challenged me) and with a whole world of blog readers.  You can read about it here:

Post a comment and let me know if you're in with me - and with the rest of the @WHBSBlog readers. P.S.  I know, I know..."Decrapifying" isn't exactly a nice word, but it's Ann Marie's word, not mine :).

Something I Just Must Share: Guest Post by Macki Smith

I saw the picture of the twenty-one Egyptian Christians about to be beheaded, their brave faces showing and their captors faces covered by black masks.  My stomach flipped over.  I pushed my breakfast away.  An hour later, I called my friend Macki so that we could mourn together over the phone--share in the horror, the questions, the grief for the broken hearts of the families of the persecuted church.  A few days later Macki emailed me this and graciously allowed me to share it with you here.

The Lord has burdened my heart with something that I just must share…a realization of a spiritual tug of war for this American Christian’s weary heart. This burden has been heavy on me for around a month now, unable to articulate my feelings in words, but clarified yesterday by the revelation that my fellow Egyptian brothers in Christ lost their lives by the terrorist group ISIS.

Why such a senseless act of brutality?

Simply because they loved MY Jesus … OUR Jesus.

Yesterday, as I was going about my simple mundane life, enjoying my freedom to homeschool my kids, cook for my family, even feed my dog, and take a break on my comfy new couch, it was during that break my eyes were opened when I scrolled down my Facebook feed. You see, right now we are in the beginning stages of building a house. A house that we have waited on and saved for…for years! So of course, a Facebook feed about how to decorate everything in your home jumped out at me. I saw all kinds of neat furniture layouts, a “how to” on curtain hanging, and now I even know the names of different kinds of legs on antique chairs...of course that's really useful! I read it, relishing in the fact that it will be only a short time now before I can, too, decorate my own home, using my newfound Facebook wisdom! I then clicked “Share” because, of course, I wanted to keep this valuable information for later. Living still in the bubble of my freedom as an American to overindulge on Facebook, I kept on scrolling down…

Then…

I saw it. A headline of such magnitude that will never leave my mind, piercing through my Americanized bubble like a knife plunging directly into my gut and causing my whole body to go hot...then numb…my hands trembling…

The headline “A Biblical Meditation on the ISIS Execution of 21 Christians…”

What?

How did I miss this? ME… selfish ME bopping along in MY own reality of self-centeredness…focusing on the trivial burdens of MY life…meditating on things finite in eternal significance…and completely missing the ultimate sacrifice of faith that my fellow Egyptian brothers gave their lives for.

Lord, I am just so very sorry…

I am so very sorry for my country…where I am witnessing before me right being wrong and wrong being right.

I am so very sorry that I have not defended my faith with the boldness that you have commanded of me. I am weak…scared of what others will say…will think…though those reasons do not justify my failure…

I am so very sorry for my own selfishness…for my mind focusing on earthly materialism and not eternal magnitude. For relishing…and even coveting…in the lavishness provided because of my American freedom…a freedom paid for with the blood of my ancestors…a freedom that You allowed to flourish…a freedom that You allowed me to be born into…a freedom that You knew that I would live under and never fully grasp the significance of the price that was paid for it…

I. Am. Just. So. Very. Sorry.

My burden, you see, has been a spiritual tug of war between living in our modern day Babylonian society that is called America and living the humble servitude life that is called Christian. I love my country! I am extremely grateful for my freedom…though I will probably never understand the cost. But with that freedom…it has cost us something too. While flourishing under influence and worldly dominance, a selfishness and immorality has gradually sneaked in amongst our free people…that is called entitlement.

And I carry the burden of entitlement in my heart as well.

My prayer is that we wake up…that I wake up! We turn away from the god of ourselves and refocus on You…God of our universe.
My prayer is that we fall on our face before you and petition in unison on behalf of our persecuted fellow believers…our brothers and sisters in faith bought expensively with blood of Christ.

My prayer is that even in our fury and disgust over ISIS’s persecution of Christianity, our hearts can be pierced with Your mercy towards these evil doers. And we can genuinely pray that in the midst of their senseless brutality that You will reveal Yourself to them through the strength and dignity of the persecuted.

My prayer is that we can realize the evil in our own hearts. And we can turn from our own evil and selfishness. We can become bold to stand firm in our faith…standing in love…yet not altering our convictions based on cultural pressures.

Let us wake up! Let us realize the intense beauty and luxury of our freedom. Let us realize that this is a freedom that can be taken away. Let us realize in the midst of enjoying our freedom, there are those losing their lives simply because they love Jesus.

American Christians, let us wake up!

12 Tips for Having a Great Sunday

The small town in which I grew up shut down on Sundays, and I think we were better off for it.  One of our two grocery stores didn’t open at all, and the other was open only from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m.  The downtown streets were empty.  All of life slowed way down.  Sundays were for worship, eating, fishing, and naps.  Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?!

When I moved here, I was sad to see all these people rushing here and there on Sundays as if it were any other day.  There was no holy space—at least not the kind that was markedly noticeable by the whole community—not even good peer pressure that made people SLOW. DOWN. and REST.  When everyone else is racing around, it’s easy to get caught up and race around that silly gerbil wheel yourself.  That little wheel is going nowhere, but that little life is getting worn slap out.

I’m not a full-blown "legalist," by the way.  I have been known occasionally to go to a restaurant on Sundays or to the grocery store if the “ox is in the ditch” as the Biblical metaphor goes.  But I really think a small dose of legalism about it would do me some good.  (And yes, I’m aware that the real Hebrew Shabbat is from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.)

As a refresher for us, here’s what God told Moses and the Hebrew people:  “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹ You have six days each week for your ordinary work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you” (Exodus 20:8-10 NLT).

Yeah, this is on that BIG TEN LIST – right there alongside those others we hold more dearly—honor your father and mother, don’t lie, steal, murder, commit adultery.  Somehow we hold exception to just this one—at best it’s inconvenient and weird, and at most it’s costly.

My pastor and dear friend always likes to remind me of what Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27 NLT).

But my question is this, “What if we DO let Sabbath meet our needs?  What if we let God meet our needs the way God designed our needs to be met?”  The One who is the Author of us is the Author of rest.  When we wrestle on without ever resting, I dare say we wrestle ourselves right to an empty defeat that God never intended for us.

So from one busy gerbil to another, here’s how to have a great Sunday:

1. Plan ahead on Saturday (or Friday if your Sabbath is on Saturday). Not my original idea—it’s God’s.   “This is what the Lord commanded: Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath day set apart for the Lord. So bake or boil as much as you want today, and set aside what is left for tomorrow” (Exodus 16:23).
2. Plan your grocery time for anytime other than Sunday.
3. When you meal plan, consider a crockpot meal or leftovers for Sundays. If you really want to get into it, use paper plates so you don’t have to wash so many dishes!!
4. Lay out clothes for Sunday (iron, mend) on Saturdays. Get the diaper bag (or other church paraphernalia) by the back door on Saturday nights.  If you’re ready the night before, you’re less likely to get flustered and yell at the kids before church or to shirk going altogether!
5. Go ahead and think about Monday on Saturday. Do whatever’s got to be done for Monday then—homework, meal plan, lesson plans.
6. Set your alarm (ouch, I know) so that when Sunday arrives, you get up in time to pray before getting ready for worship. It always makes for a more enriching worship time.
7. Go to worship! Obviously.
8. If the family needs a nap that afternoon, make everyone take one! (or at least have a quiet time in their rooms)
9. If you don’t want to nap, do something Re-Creation-al. True recreation isn’t something that just numbs you (e.g. lame tv shows) but something that really re-creates the you that God made you to be (drawing, painting, writing, fishing, walking, reading, etc.).
10. OR do something as a family that connects you with one another in a fun way (play games, play outside). Sundays should be a time toward which every one of every age looks forward.  To be a holy day means it’s a set-apart day—a good kind of different from the other six days.
11. When you’re tempted to do laundry (or ______ fill in the blank with daily, ordinary work), write down all the tasks you’re dying to do, and ask yourself if it’s really worth it or can it wait until tomorrow night (or lunch break if you get one of those or early morning or maybe even next Saturday).
12. Stay out of stores and away from internet shopping on Sundays—they just make us want stuff that we probably don’t need, spend money we probably don’t have, and most of all rob us of holy time and meaningful experiences with the people we love.

A new habit takes practice.  Just try it.  Practice a new holy habit this week!

If you create a new Sunday habit, share it in the comments section.

What Your Spouse/Friend/Child Really Needs for Valentine's Day

If I make heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast but have not LOVE, I am just a clanging cymbal.

If I decorate my house with cute little Pinteresty Valentine stuff, but have not LOVE, I would be a noisy gong.

If I homeschool, spending all day everyday with my children teaching them constantly, but have not LOVE, I am nothing.

If I feed my children five times a day but have not LOVE, I would have gained nothing.

If I change diapers, read them sweet and wonderful books, brush their teeth twice a day, potty train, clean up their messes, teach them to clean their messes, play outside, take them to church, to the nursing home, to the library, give them my full attention but have not LOVE . . .

“If I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.  If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained NOTHING” (2 Corinthians 13:2b-3).

But if I do all these things day in and day out, surely that’s evidence that I do love my children!  But this is not about proving a case of how much we love our children.  If you think through this little list of things, you can imagine yourself doing them with a grouchy attitude and a frustrated “my-kids-are-so-unappreciative” grimace, OR you can imagine a woman who keeps loving, smiling, hugging, training her children, a woman who expects that yes, they’re going to behave like entitled little wretches until she deliberately, daily trains them to love as she loves.  I want to be that woman.

Real LOVE, the God-sized love, is always self-giving in nature.  As Martin Luther taught, it’s the heart curved out rather than the heart curved in on itself.  That’s what Christian discipleship (including motherhood) is—a heart curved out training little hearts to curve out instead of curving in on themselves.  Part of the frustration with ourselves (or with our children) is that we can’t fully “train” a heart to curve out; no, God Himself has to bend that heart right out by the power and presence of His Spirit.

A thousand times a day I make choices and have reactions that affect other people (usually three little people), and those reactions show which way my heart is curved.  All that I can do is bend to Him, and He bends my heart.  I’m so bad at this thing—this agape love thing—that lately I’ve been trying to bend to Him every half hour.  As Frank Laubach, a busy missionary to the Philippine Islands wrote, “I have started out trying to live all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing, ‘What, Father, do you desire said?  What, Father do you desire done this minute? . . . Can a man working at a machine pray for people all day long, and at the same time do his task efficiently?  Can a mother wash dishes, care for the babies, continuously talking to God?”*

So far, I give this every-thirty-minute thing a good effort and fall off the wagon by nine a.m.  But I’m enjoying getting back on the wagon and deliberately turning to Him again.

It’s early morning, and my little ones just stumbled sleepy-eyed into my room, so to choose LOVE in this moment means I quit this writing and turn to what God has put in front of me here and now.  Here goes turning to the Grace-filler throughout this day to do in me that which I can’t do on my own!

Let love be your highest goal!1 Corinthians 14:1a NLT

Happy Valentine’s Day!

* Laubach, Frank.  “Letters by a Modern Mystic.”  Devotional Classics.  Ed.  Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith.  San Francisco:  Harper, 2005.  101-107.  Print.

The Best Easy Strawberry Cake

This cake has been a favorite of mine since childhood!  I've never been a fan of boring white birthday cakes.  Even as a little girl, I always wanted Mama to bake this strawberry cake or a caramel cake for my birthday.  Recently I made this one for a dear friend who didn't want a baby shower, but sans baby shower, we still ate cake! (I have a little long ways to go on my decorating skills!)

Strawberry Cake and Icing Recipe

1 box of Duncan Hines yellow cake mix (yes, I know cheating--but hey, I said "easy"!)
1 small package of strawberry jello
2/3 cup of oil
1/2 cup of water
4 eggs
10 oz. package of frozen strawberries
1/2 cup (i.e. 1 stick) of butter, softened
1 box of confectioner's sugar
fresh strawberries for decorating

for cake:
Grease pan and sprinkle with flour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix 1st five items and 1/2 c of the frozen strawberries.  Blend on low; then beat on medium.
Pour in pan and bake for 30 minutes or until cake pulls away from sides and toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Let cool in pan for 5 to 10 minutes before removing on to plate.  Let cool completely before icing.

for icing:
Blend softened butter (not melted!!!), remaining frozen strawberries (1/2 c), and confectioner's sugar.  Start on low, blend on high until creamy.  Pour over cake.  Refrigerate cake.  (Due to the strawberries, the icing will soften too much if you leave it out on the counter all day.)